Jamaican dancehall artist Vybz Kartel who was serving for murder conviction has won an appeal on grounds of juror misconduct.
According to reports, Vybz Kartel whose real name is Adidja Palmer was convicted of murder after he was found guilty of murdering his associate Clive “Lizard” Williams on the Caribbean island.
Kartel and his co-accused Shawn Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre St John had appealed at the Privy Council, which serves as the highest court of appeal in Jamaica and other Commonwealth countries.
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The three had appealed last month and maintained their innocence since the original trial. The Privy Council was their last chance to reverse the life sentence verdict.
According to the Privy Council rulling, a panel of justices said that a juror accused of attempting to bribe fellow jury members was not removed from the bench and the judge let them remain on the case and have a say in the final verdicts.
This was according to the council, a “fatal to the safety of the convictions which followed” and “an infringement of the [defendants’] fundamental right to a fair hearing”.
The accused also argued that a key piece of mobile phone evidence – a text message allegedly sent from Kartel’s phone – presented in court had been obtained in breach of guidelines.
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However, the panel did not rule on these matters, finding that the allegations of bribery alone were serious enough to dismiss the guilty verdicts
The case will now go back to the authorities in Jamaica who will then decide whether the case should be retried without the juror misconduct that led to the successful appeal by the musician and his co-accused.